Сая асар procrastinate болоод Асуултын форум орсон чинь, нэг гар Монгол authoritarian rule-тэй болвол бүх зүйл сайжирна гэнээ. It really shocked me because what kind of a person rejects his right to vote? I mean, saying that you want to be under an authoritarian rule means that you deny your right to make a decision on anything. It seems that my generation takes for the granted our right to vote because ever since we became conscious, Mongolia was already a democratic nation. I know that a lot of my friends didn’t vote during the last presidential elections, which I find quite disappointing. Хүмүүс бүгд л засгийн газраа шүүмжлээд байх юм, but then did they vote during the last elections? If they denied their duty as a citizen to vote, how can they criticize? They had the opportunity to make their voices heard but nooo they refused, so яалтай ч билээ. Ер нь Монгол Австрали шиг сонгуульд оролцох иргэний үүргийг хуульчилмаар юм даа, саналаа өгөхгүй бол торгууль төлөөд сууж байна биз, hehe. But then сонгуульд саналаа өгөхөөр шал ядаргаатай, хуруун дээр хачин тэмдэг тавьчихдаг юм. Тэрийг болимоор юм аа, арилгах гэж наян жил. Anyways, this was just a random thought at 12 am, :D. I should get to sleep now, just hope I won’t dream about any elections or anything.
PS: I think Orwell said that ‘men never really learn from history’, yup yup… яг л үнэн хэлж дээ. After all the authoritarian regimes gone wrong, others still want it.
23 Comments
If people learned from history and its mistakes, we’d live in a perfect world. I’m sure people have made every possible mistake in the last several thousand years, but have we learnt? Then again, they say history is written by the victors, right? So I guess the subjectivity of written history makes learning impossible since victors tend to justify themselves… (damn, I’m blabbing).
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If we had authoritarion rule things really could be better. Given the dictator is good leader, we could prosper, no doubt.
Government would run more efficient. There won’t be any conflicts of interest, cus every interest will be for Mongolia.
What are the probabilities of a benevolent dictator coming to power? Instead of a philosopher-king you might as well get another Stalin. That’s the reason why people don’t like authoritarianism, it’s too risky.
Also, you might have certain interests, which you think directly benefit Mongolia, while I may have other interests, which I think also benefit Mongolia. Our interests may completely contradict. If you become an authoritarian leader, I’d hate you and I’d want you out of power. We may even get violent conflict. Isn’t it infinitely better to work out our differences through other institutions?
Gol ni isn’t every person’s interest for Mongolia relative? What if the leader’s interest for Mongolia is to have all the mining companies be owned by foreign companies? Or to have all the Buriat ppl wiped out? Er ni tegeed ch by having conflicts of interest, we come to a resolution that is fit for everyone.
If I remember vaguely, I said “given the dictator is good leader”. Chingis was a dictator. We had good times. Lot of people died, true, but nobody missed them.
If we had given Ih Huraldai executive command back then, nobody would have wanted to consolidate tribes or accept certain duties, and we would still have been separate, and would have done nothing but kill each other.
We needed one, clear, straightforward commander, who would listen to his peers, eliminate his emenies, and do what was best for his country. That was exactly what we had.
If there was conflict of interests, Chingis would choose the right one, that is for his people.
The assumption that the dictator would be a good leader projects your entire argument into the realm of pure theory and makes it somewhat irrelevant, especially at this time. In theory, yes… it would be fabulous to have somebody with the power and will to lead the country in the right direction, and I do share your impulses… People have written about this from time immemorial, look at Plato’s Republic. But how realistic is “The Republic”? I mean, he has some disturbing gene politics game going on, he has very stringent controls on freedom of speech, there is social hierarchy with limited mobility, etc…
If we look at it from our current vantage point, we’d have to consider a lot of issues. For starters, the leader has to be omniscient, he has to know what’s good for the country as a whole. What kind of information is he going to base his decision on? Asymmetric information is a tricky thing, and one can make a wrong decision with the best of intentions. When you have many competing individuals and interests, presumably you’ll come up with a solution that satisfies most.
When it comes to prosperity, there’s no easy solution… I think, one person can rarely change a country, it’s all about the group effort. Plus, I’d hate to be one of those little people, who had been killed and whom nobody had missed. Very disturbing.
Ok Sweety. Lets go back to the real issue here.
Why do we need an election anyway? As you pointed out, most of the population is limited on their ability to make an informed decision. Some of them even don’t know the difference between Communism and MAXH. This means more confusion, more corruption of power, more chances of wrong people taking control.
Let’s face it, democracy was a dream too.
The way I see it, authoritarian control doesn’t mean one person doing everything. It means one person being accountable.
In our parliamentary system, there is always an excuse. Nobody takes responsibility. You can blame anyone from 1-76. Pick a number?
I can’t believe you used the words authoritarianism and accountability in one paragraph. Authoritarianism is all about NOT being accountable – do you think Kim Jong Il is accountable? There’s no doubt he’s starving his people to death, but what can they do about it? So what do you do when your dictator makes the wrong decisions? Do you have a bloody coup d’etat everytime? Is that better than elections? On the other hand, parliament members can easily be held responsible – you just don’t vote them in the next election. I’d say our problems stem from different issues, and the parliamentary democracy thing is not one of them.
PS: omg, there’s a difference between communism and MAXH? 😀
Why are we talking about Kim Jong Il?!
He is not an example of authoritarianism. He is an example of monarchy. Kim Jong did not do anything meritious to reach where he is, he inherited his post from his father. And the country that allows this system, and keeps itself starved, shame on them.
There will always be poor people, theives and few that fallen between cracks in our society. Same true on global scale.
There should be an uncompromisable standard, that can be used to hold accountable, when a dictator proven to be incompetent.
The condition that the dictator will hold power should be that the standard will be utilized if neccesary. The dictator, or the Leader, should not tamper with the standard in any way.
Kim Jong Il rose to power as a result of his father’s authoritarianism. Do you think a dictator would ever submit to some kind of a dubious standard? The only way to overthrow a bad dictator would be a popular riot or a military coup, which are not guaranteed success. How feasible is that? The question of succession is always a problem in politics, once you give somebody total power, it’s extremely difficult to take it away.
By the way, look at how you have capitalized Leader – does that not remind you of North Korea?
There is always a standard. As powerful as he is, Kim Jong Il, can’t go around picking up girls skirts and sniffing underwear.
Authoritarianism is not as easy as it looks, you have to report to your lieutenants in a non-direct way, you have to keep their trust, or why would they serve you? Keeping trust also demands a lot of work on your part.
The thing that is flawed in NK is their idealogical system which they won’t give up. If you have power and the trust of the people, with some effort, you can read newspaper, you can watch CNN and understand what is going right and whats not. And you can also surround yourself with the best people, and let them work for their country. But in a controlled, conflict-of-interest-free environment, which is better condition than some lobbyist across the hall waiting to shit your mind with greedy trash.
Ok, so USA got democracy. So what? There is only two party, not multiple. Both financed by corporations, which is owned by the rich, maybe like yourself, who knows. And the government always says they are for the people, of course, they should be for the people, if people get into bad shape, nobody’s gonna buy products the corporations make, and they would go broke.
America is rich, not because they are democratic. But because it is so evil. Look at the suburbs, clean cut, green grass glistering the lawns, birds singing and shitting on the SUVs that farting $3 a gallon gas.
Who do you think moved the lawns? Who do you think keeps everything in good order? The Mexicans, working shady, illegally, afraid to speak up. Cus the system the Americans built wanted them to shut up and work for cheap.
From a small distant colony America rose to great power, but by whose work? The slaves, they worked for free untill 1960, and listen to this: if they referendumed the issue of civil rights by voting, nothing would have changed. Majority whites would not want to lose cheap labor just like that. Because there was judicial court things have changed. Judges aren’t elected they don’t represent constituency. They are, in other words, an example of authoritarianism in a good light.
Your comment is full of “leftist propaganda”, which I don’t care to address. Besides, when it comes to governance issues, I could care less about the US and its problems at this point.
FYI, 1: Slavery was abolished in the 19th century, not in 1960. 2: Those Mexicans have come to the US of their own free will (perhaps they desired to escape the authoritarian government of the revolutionary party in Mexico, which was in power throughout the 20th century). 3: Supreme court justices are appointed by the US President, who is an elected official.
Conflict of interest will exist in every government. When important decisions are at stake, there will undoubtedly be conflicts of interest, whether they are based on economic interests of the parties involved, their institutional interests or whatever. Your “controlled, conflict-of-interest-free environment” is a contradiction in terms when it comes to politics because politics is all about conflicts of interest. An authoritarian government is not going to change that.
You know, democracy is not an American value. Nor do you have to associate it with the US alone.
Also, I don’t discount the possibility that sometime in the future, when information dissemination is perfected and economic needs of the society are wholly met, a consentual, non-elected body of impartial leaders will come to govern countries. Perhaps there will be a world government like that. But under current conditions… democracy is all we got, and I’m not willing to give that up.
You are absolutely right. Slavery was abolished in 19th century. But segregation lasted until 1960. Segregation kept blacks poor, uneducated with no choice but to work “almost” for free. You think the whole Martin Luther King thing was a joke?!
If every black slave, that ever was, have been compensated fairly, America would never have become so great, as it is now. They had large pool of labor for FREE.
So when you say “America did it with Democracy, we should have democracy too”, you also need to enslave couple of million people, and extract free labor off of them for couple of centuries. That is how you become so prosperous like America. Not with democracy.
I never said ???America did it with Democracy, we should have democracy too???. I never said we should emulate America. Also, I never said that there is a direct link between democratic government and economic prosperity. Democracy has certain inherent qualities that are desirable, that’s all I want to argue at this point.
Let me finish few points that need to be stressed.
1. Mexico is not an authoritarian country. Better example of an authoritarian country is Peru or Venezuela, where the head of the government is not a representative of the elite whites (as in Mexico), but one of ordinary people, like Alejandro Toledo Manrique, and Hugo Chavez.
Yes, the Mexicans came here by their own free will. Everyone came here by their own free will. But it is ridiculous to talk about human rights, equality, and most importantly DEMOCRACY, when in your backyard people getting ripped off, and the worst part: the government, that is suppose to preserve justice, doing nothing about it, but actually encouraging it.
In regards to Mexico, I was referring to the rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which was in power throughout the 20th century.
2. Supreme court justices are appointed for life.They do not work under the president. What the president do is, he picks a candidate and hopes for the best.
Sometimes, a candidate will turn out to be different than what the president expected. (Bush Sr. nominated Justice Souter, and he turned out to be a democrat.) In that case, there’s nothing the president can do about it.
Justices are nominated by the president, who is elected. But all they, the justices, do is interpret the constitution, not to work for any group, any interest or any president.
The general public is stupid. They should not be voting at all. Remember the last election where a lot of people voted because the democratic party promised 10000 tugrugs every month. How did they possibly think that the government had so much money to spare. If you don’t know the basics of economics, then you probably shouldn’t go vote, ever.
The general public is stupid. by RedHero
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Ta uuruu general public-iin neg n bish uu?
General public in Mongolia is stupid, cus education is low.
Redhero and you probably have invested countless man-hours studying to be chatting on Bodrol.com.
So Redhero is not part of “general public”.